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rathercommon

crystal | letter | cease and desist notices slipped under her door | action

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From:

rathercommon

What does that even mean?

From:

elegiaque

If you do something, say something, behave a certain way—what does it matter what's underneath it?

( the same logic, again. )

It still denies satisfaction. Even if it isn't perfectly real.

From:

rathercommon

Whose satisfaction? Theirs?

From:

elegiaque

Mmm. It's better that way.

From:

rathercommon

That means you're still letting them dictate your actions.

Edited Date: 2018-11-22 07:36 am (UTC)

From:

elegiaque

Great, well, now that we've established there are literally no options where that can't be argued, I'll carry on as I have been.

From:

rathercommon

Well, why not be honest about your feelings in that case?

From:

elegiaque

( first of all, because fuck you— )

I am doing what I want to do. That's how I feel about it. That's being honest about my feelings and what I want to do with them.

From:

rathercommon

But you're not. You're pushing them down, aren't you. That must feel awfully lonely.

From:

elegiaque

If there were something else I wanted to do, maybe that would be true. But I'm—

( she sounds so frustrated, which is so very like her for something like what she's about to say— )

I'd never not felt lonely before.

( she'd never felt safe, or happy; she'd never had things of value to lose. )

I don't feel lonely. I don't feel the way I felt. ( whatever that was!! gwenaëlle still hates talking about feelings and persistently talks around them, no one's surprised. ) And it's good.

From:

rathercommon

[ A slight hesitation, then - ]

When I was younger - a few years ago - there was a magician who attacked me. Me and my friend. And everyone told me, stay quiet. Don't say anything. Keep your head down so it doesn't get worse.

I didn't, of course - you know me - but...I guess you're right. It wasn't talking, made me feel less awful. It was finding a different outlet.

From:

elegiaque

( eventually, )

It's freeing. To not be the thing that you were, any more.

( that matters. that means something. choosing, and making choices. )

From:

rathercommon

You never were, though. You were never a thing, Gwen.

From:

elegiaque

( bleakly wry, the way the best and worst of her humor always is, )

I think that was sometimes the problem.

From:

rathercommon

How would that be a problem?

[ Ferocious: ]

They'd like it very much if we were things. They twist us and break us until we've no more ability to resist than objects do, because then we're easy and we're pleasing to them. Useful little baubles. But I'm a person, and always will be, no matter how they batter at me. The same is true for you.

From:

elegiaque

( the sound of a drawer opening, of paper, and: )

I think that I must be beautiful now - like this - a portrait of the artist in repose. Such use of colour - they would say - bloomed upon my cheekbone, your signet's seal in impression. I am waxen and pressed to paper, a secret folded in itself, and am I not lovely, so kept? Is there not promise in the unfolding?

Unlovely in mundane fact, I must be ever as I am now - a cut glance - a murmur - the touch of fingertips. Dans le masque I am what pleases you;

how ruinous, to have a heart after all.

( oh, so she does know how to express her feelings without swearing. )

From:

rathercommon

Erm -

[ Kitty hesitates. Poetry isn't her thing. ]

Were you reading something, there?

From:

elegiaque

de Fonce didn't believe my nom de guerre is mine, so I was obliged to write something hastily to satisfy him that I wasn't lying. It seemed—I don't know. Relevant.

I'm not making myself small for anyone any more.

From:

rathercommon

Erm - right.

[ Kitty's a clever girl, but at the end of the day, there are some realms in which she's dreadfully ignorant. Many realms, actually. She, after all, only had about six years of education, and those years of education taught her to repair mechanical belts and grease gears and (when she proved herself uncommonly intelligent) how to read ledgers and touch-type. Poetry, the analysis thereof, and the meaning of nom de guerre are all completely opaque to her. ]

Well - for what it's worth, I don't know if you can say that with such certainty. That you're not making yourself small. Not that I think you are, just - the world is always trying to make you make yourself small. To resist that force - that's something you've always got to work at. It's a skill I've not come remotely close to mastering, myself.

From:

elegiaque

( if anyone were to ask gwenaëlle what she is, instead of just listening to her endlessly list the things she isn't and/or refuses to be—

it's a poet. still, always. )

You can't say anything with certainty, but you still should.

( words matter. the story matters. no accident that the poet is so preoccupied with narrative as force. )

Deciding it's something worth making true. Everything in life is just stories we tell ourselves—if someone tells you that you're small for long enough, you believe it. That's one way the world makes you that way. You get given a story. It's a form of resistance to tell your own.

Look at Flint. He understands that.

From:

rathercommon

[ Kitty frowns at that last part. ]

What do you mean?

From:

elegiaque

He's very deliberate. He's aware of his audience; I don't mean that he's false, in what he shows himself to be, but it's a choice made with forethought. He understands telling a story with every part. What that can mean.

From:

rathercommon

I mean - I think he's careful about his image, sure. How's that resistance, though?

From:

elegiaque

It's not big, or impressive, but it's—

We tell stories to teach people how to think. That's one reason why you can't just say something and have it be, that's why it's a conversation and not the end of one when you make a statement that you want to make true.

You think what he is is what he was told to be? I don't.